Welcome to Love and Abuse, the show about navigating the difficult relationship,

from simple disagreements to emotionally abusive behaviors.

You deserve respecting kindness.

All the information on this show is meant for educational purposes only.

Always seek a professional for your mental health and well-being, and always pick your battles wisely.

I'm your host, Paul Koliani.

Thanks for joining me for another episode.

Love and Abuse is the official podcast of the Mean Workbook.

If you haven't heard of that, just listen at the end of the episode and I talk about that.

But I get right into the subject matter, typically.

I'll get right into it today.

Somebody wrote to me and said, I need help. I'm two years into this relationship that was started on the foundation of healing and redeeming

abuse from another stint five years ago.

He fell back into his old habits pretty quickly.

It boils down to refusing accountability and blaming me and my, quote, approach.

He acknowledged his abusive behavior toward me, even joined a program for it for a short time.

He asked for my help and insight to change

himself. I swear he was genuine in his declarations of stopping the violence, but there was always

some kind of caveat that placed blame onto me for his behaviors. Some time into the relationship

after being spat on, cheated on, lied to, called horrid names,

my thing's broken.

I started to react in emotionally violent ways myself.

...